Is Pokémon GO Out Yet?

UPDATE: As of about 9 pm Eastern time on July 6, Pokémon GO is indeed live on both the App Store and Google Play … in the US. Sorry Canada! Our original post follows …

This might be the day that Pokémon GO releases in the U.S. And then again, it might not be.

The reason it’s even worth a discussion is that the eagerly anticipated first foray into mobile games for Nintendo (not including Miitomo) — with some help from Niantic and The Pokémon Company — has definitely moved out of the “field test” stage and onto the iOS App Store in New Zealand and Australia.

It’s also technically available on Google Play, though when you try to use the link to acquire it in the U.S., you are greeted by the following depressing message:

So what gives? It could be that the U.S. will officially get Pokémon GO later today, or perhaps on July 7 when the App Store does its traditional Thursday afternoon update. Or it’s possible that the game has simply moved from a closed beta to a more traditional soft launch period, since New Zealand and Australia are markets often used for that very purpose.

The messaging from The Pokémon Company really doesn’t clear anything up on that front.

For U.S. and Japanese customers, Pokémon Co. says "please wait for a while" for formal launch of its AR game Pokémon GO.

Of course that doesn’t mean you have to wait for the official U.S. launch, whenever that might be. We wrote up a handy guide to creating a Canadian iTunes account a while back, and it works just as well to make one for Australia and New Zealand too. Trust us on that.

So if you simply can’t wait, you can start catching ’em all right now. But Pokémon GO should be coming to America soon … -ish.